This invention relates to salivary diagnostics, particularly relating to systems and methods for salivary diagnostic testing. In particular, the invention relates to the collection, filtering, and evaluation of saliva samples for salivary diagnostic testing and the reporting of results of salivary diagnostic testing.
Humans have three major salivary glands that are the parotid, submandibular, and sublingual. Additionally, humans have minor salivary glands. Salivary glands secrete a rich mixture of biological chemicals, electrolytes, proteins, genetic material, polysaccharides, and other molecules. Most of the substances secreted by the salivary glands enter the salivary gland acinus and duct system from surrounding capillaries via the intervening tissue fluid. The level of each salivary component varies significantly depending on the health status of the individual and the presence of disease, both oral and systemic. The measurement of these components makes it possible to screen for a large array diseases, disorders, and conditions.
Current diagnostic methods include blood analysis, biopsy, and other large scale tests, which all cause considerable discomfort to the patient. Blood analysis requires the drawing of blood with the use of a hypodermic needle. Biopsy requires the removal of tissue from the suspected affected area. Current diagnostic methods also require significant amounts of time to obtain results with some tests taking multiple days or even weeks to complete. Often, this requires a patient to visit a doctor's office for the initial sample collection and again to obtain the results. Collection of samples often requires the expertise of a medical practitioner, which is costly. Evaluation of samples is often completed in a sophisticated laboratory, which is also very costly.
Consequently, medical practitioners and patients are in need of an adequate minimally invasive method of diagnosing diseases, disorders, and conditions. Moreover, medical practitioners and patients are in need of a quicker method of diagnosing diseases, disorders, and conditions. Further still, patients and the health care industry are in need of less expensive methods of diagnosing diseases, disorders, and conditions. The required expertise, specialized equipment, and general expense of diagnostics have made diagnostics an expensive and time consuming process. Consequently, a diagnostic process that does not require medical practitioner sample extraction, sophisticated laboratories, and long processing times is desirable for medical practitioners, patients, and the health care industry.